Following The Mysterious 'Leatherman' To His 'Cave' In Watertown

The legendary Leatherman stopped at a number of ledges and overhangs across the central and western portions of the state to sleep on his cyclical journeys over nearly 30 years. The mysterious Leatherman, who was covered with patches of leather would walk a 360-mile circuitous route from the Connecticut River to Hudson River every 34 days. (Peter Marteka/The Hartford Courant)

The Leatherman Caves along the Mattatuck Trail and Mattatuck State Forest in Watertown

Shortly after I posted some photos of my trip to the "Leatherman Cave" in Watertown, I received a message from a high school classmate.

"My great grandmother, who was born in 1871, grew up on Bridge Street in Middletown right by the railroad tracks," Mary Dillon Dickerson wrote. "Her parents had a pub and used to leave food out for him."

It seems many people whose families lived in central and western Connecticut have tales of family members who gave food to the legendary Leatherman, or know a cave where the Leatherman stayed – a kind of "George Washington slept here" claim to fame.

The Leatherman appeared in the state around 1860. Over the next three decades, the man — covered entirely with leather patches — kept walking a circuitous, 360-mile route from central Connecticut to western New York in a span of 34 days. He stopped only to eat and sleep, and when he finished one circuit, he would turn around and began again. He completed the circuit 11 times each year.

One of his rest stops was a series of rocky ledges and overhangs in the wilds of Watertown that today are known as the Leatherman's Cave. Although it not a true cave, the jumble of massive rocks under a ledge known as Crane's Lookout is about as impressive as any I've seen across the state.

The cave is accessible along the Connecticut Forest & Park Association's Mattatuck Trail by hiking east several miles from Black Rock State Park or west from Reynolds Bridge over the Naugatuck River. The hike from the park will bring visitors to the top of Crane's Lookout first, a kind of penthouse for the cave below. The views from the 780-foot-high peak are beautiful, and one can imagine the Leatherman taking a break from his walk to admire the view.

The trail descends from the lookout into the cave, where visitors have to squeeze through a tight opening in the ledge or crawl underneath to get in. The cavern was created when huge pieces of the rock ledge fell, ending up in positions that created a cave-like appearance. It is quite a cavernous ledge with huge icicles dangling from clumps of moss along the sheer sides of the wall.

No one really knows why the Leatherman made his cyclical journeys, but many historians who have written about him speculated that it was due to a lost love or broken heart. Some called him Jules Bourglay, the son of a woodcarver who won the heart of the daughter of a Paris leather merchant only to lose it after the leather industry crashed and he was ruined financially.

Others say he was Rudolph Mossey, a French shoemaker whose wife ran off with another man to America. He followed only to discover his wife had died.

A Hartford Courant article during the summer of 1884 tried to piece together the storied past of the "eccentric Leather Man": "Nothing can be more pitiful than to see this poor, miserable, broken-hearted creature wandering around in cold and wet weather without even the common comforts of life, brooding over his terrible sorrow which has cost him his happiness and prosperity. Treat him kindly, dear reader, wherever you meet him and lighten his heavy heart with acts and words of kindness."

The Leatherman carried two bags in one hand and a staff in the other. Among his belongings were an ax, pail, hatchet, jack-knife, awl and scraps of leather. His coming "was heralded by the squeak of dried out leather and his presence was predictable as his leaving," according to Courant article from 1977.

The Leatherman died in a cave in Mount Pleasant, N.Y., in 1889 ending his years of wandering. The Great Blizzard of 1888 and cancer took a toll on him in his later years. He will perhaps always be known as the mysterious man in leather forever trying to run from his past before eventually dying from his broken heart.

Visitors can park at Black Rock State Park or Bidwell Hill Road off Route 6 and access the cave by walking east along the Mattatuck Trail.